


Cakes For Every Occasion

by sippingonstardust



Category: Batgirl (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics), Red Robin (Comics), Teen Titans (Comics)
Genre: Family Fluff, Gen, Sibling Bonding, cake baking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-30
Updated: 2019-05-30
Packaged: 2020-03-29 15:35:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19022812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sippingonstardust/pseuds/sippingonstardust
Summary: “We— ” Brown says, wholly confident in her words. “ — are baking Tim a cake.”“Right.” Damian nods, catches himself and stops. He cocks his head to the side. “Why are we doing that? What did he do to deserve cake?”Steph pauses in her struggle to get a whisk through the lumpy mixture in the bowl she holds, swearing crudely under her breath. “It’s a “congrats you lived cake,” because he almost died yesterday and we’re glad he didn’t”





	Cakes For Every Occasion

“What exactly are you doing?”

Damian leans over the once pristine granite countertop to watch Stephanie fiddle with a measuring cup and a bag of baking flour. The entire area surrounding her is akin to a baking war zone; flour and egg shells combine in a mixture of white powder and yellow clumps across the counter, leaking onto the floor and escaping across the room in a trail of footsteps that lead to the fridge and back. As this is her third attempt at….whatever she’s been trying to accomplish, Damian takes pity on her. She’s going to have to face the wrath of Pennyworth for destroying his kitchen.

“ _We_ — ” Brown says, wholly confident in her words. “ — are baking Tim a cake.”

“Right.” Damian nods, catches himself and stops. He cocks his head to the side. “Why are we doing that? What did he do to deserve cake?”

Steph pauses in her struggle to get a whisk through the lumpy mixture in the bowl she holds, swearing crudely under her breath. “It’s a “ _congrats you lived cake_ ,” because he almost died yesterday and we’re glad he didn’t”

“Well, I don’t know about you but I could—”

“No, you can’t. Don’t spew that shit to me, babybat. You were the first one at his side when he went down.”

“No. I wasn’t-”

She remains irritatingly sure, hands at her hips and lips pulled into a smirk. “Yes. You  _were._  You yelled at me to get out of the way. And then you yelled at Alfred for not letting you see him. And then at Bruce for telling you to calm yourself.”

“That doesn’t mean anything.” Damian watches her crack an egg into the bowl, cringing as she lets a few more bits of shell fall in.

“It means somewhere deep, deep down inside that demon body.  _Real deep_. You have a heart,” she points her whisk at him. “And in that heart, you love and care for your big brothers. Enough to never want to see harm come to them.”

“If I did, would I be letting you bake something that could potentially give Drake salmonella poisoning?”

She snorts. “Oh, you aren’t actually going to let me cook this. I was just waiting for you to get annoyed enough to do it for me.”

He fixes her with a scowl, a perfect imitation of his father’s clenched jaw and cold, shark eyes. Still, she’s unfazed, remaining jubilant with a wicked grin attached to her features. He slides across granite into the kitchen, scooping a handful of her dreadful flour/eggs mixture and lobbing it into her face before she can protest.

“Clear this up. Get me fresh ingredients and do it quickly.” He snaps his fingers, “Oh and Brown….you have something on your face. Right…. _there_.”

He leaves her fuming amidst her culinary disasters and wanders off to his room. Damian doesn’t flounder in the face of Brown’s irresponsibility and neither is he about to let her make assumptions about him and win. He conjures up his plan quickly, one that’s subtle enough for Drake’s liking and still bougie enough to fulfil Stephanie’s celebratory inclination.

Luckily for him, Jason answers on the second ring.

“Demon.”

“Death-breath.”

Jason’s voice is thick with sleep, but it brims with more concern than annoyance. “What’s wrong?”

“We’re baking a cake for Timothy. Brown—”

“Wait, Steph’s baking?“

”….yes.“

"Don’t even let her near the oven, I’ll be there in fifteen!”

Todd makes good on his word and arrives quickly, apron in hand and a stern gait ready for Stephanie’s pleading pout.

They decide on a black tea cake with honey buttercream icing because Jason remembers Tim cramming down a tray of cupcakes in those flavours at a gala a few weeks back. Preparation is relatively easy with him around to delegate and Damian makes his best effort to not pick fights with either of them.

Or at least start as little fights as possible.

He just tries his best not to commit murder, how about that?

Jason carries most of the heavy work while Damian is given the smaller, intricate tasks. Steph gets to mix things, which brings her immense satisfaction for some reason.

They’re just about ready to place two separate cake pans into the oven when Alfred waltzes in. He stops in the doorway, walks out and then back in again.

"I was quite sure my eyes were deceiving me for a moment.” He intones, “How astonishing to find the three of you in one room doing something productive rather than choking the daylights out of each other.”

“We can be nice when we want to, Al.”

“Yes, Master Jason, it appears you can. Shall I bother to offer my assistance or can I trust that you have this under control?”

Steph drops a handful of dishes into the sink with a startling clatter that draws a glare from Jason. She waves a hand in Pennyworth’s direction, “We’ve got this.”

“Considering that you’re involved, Miss Brown, I think it would be wise to place Master Damian in charge of this venture.”

Which is to say, he’s making it Damian’s responsibility to ensure that Brown doesn’t blow up the kitchen.  _Again_.

Damian huffs. “Funny you assume that I wasn’t already spearheading this.”

Alfred clucks his tongue and leaves them be after he watches Jason place the cakes into the oven with careful concern.

The buttercream proves easier work than the cake. While Todd and Brown argue over measurements, Damian rolls out bits of fondant to make a miniature version of Red Robin. It’s tacky and sticky at first, but eventually he gets the hang of it. Cutting and shaping to his liking until he has a refined figure of his brother’s subset Robin costume laid out before him.

“Hold the bag still.”

Brown tuts, shaking the piping bag a bit to prove her point as Jason scoops in the smooth frosting mixture. “I  _am_  holding the bag still.”  

“You know,” Jason begins, a tiny smile pulling up at the corners of his mouth. “The icing is my favourite thing.”

“Really?……I’d have to say pyjamas for mine.”

Damian snorts violently. He’s joined shortly after by Jason’s barking laughter.

“ _What_?” Steph cries, affronted. “What’s so funny?”

“I meant icing is my favourite thing about baking. Not my favourite thing in the whole world.”

“You really are a spectacle when you’re running on little sleep, Brown.”

“ _Fu—_  ”

“What are you guys doing?”

Tim captures their attention from the staircase. He’s groggy eyed and limping. The bruises across his face are still so fresh that it makes anger burn in Damian’s stomach.

Stephanie reaches him first, takes him by the arm and gently helps him down the last few stairs. She’s wearing her best grin, all dimples and sugary sweetness.

“We’re making you a cake!” She informs him.

Jason sets the full piping bag into a large cup before surveying Tim. He’s wearing just a hint of amusement as he adds, “A _‘congrats you didn’t die cake,’_ to be specific.”

Tim’s face does something funny. He gapes his mouth open and closed like a goldfish for a solid minute, enough time for Brown to cycle through all seven stages of grief with her eyebrows.

When he speaks again, his voice is a broken whisper. “You guys….you  _didn’t_ ….I can’t believe you. I don’t know what to say.”

“Where are your manners, Drake? Say _'thank you’_  at least.”

“Thanks, Dames.” He grins, winces at the pain that comes from jostling his bruises. “Oh, hey. Is that me?”

Damian steps back from his tray to let Tim survey his handiwork. A surge of pride sparks in his chest at his brother’s clear surprise, it almost makes him feel a little closer to normal. As though they were a regular family, as though they weren’t waging war against the world’s darkness in their spare hours.

Trapped in his thoughts, he finds himself being shaken to consciousness by crushing hug. Tim’s all knobbly bones and awkward hands that make him feel impossibly small. But it’s nice, even though he would never admit it.

“Get off me you big lug!”

“I actually can’t believe you guys did this. For  _me_. I really can’t.”

“It was Brown’s idea.”

“Yeah but, Jason and Damian did all the heavy lifting. I’m just here to take credit and wreak havoc.”

Jason laughs, throwing an arm around her. “So basically what you’re always here to do.”

“Exactly.”

They end up eating the cake warm out of the pans, using spoons to scrap the icing out the piping bag. Bruce finds them a cake and half in, offers them a distracted grunt before stealing a tablespoon of sugary buttercream before slinking away.

“I’m never eating this,” Tim promises Damian as he pulls his fondant figure towards him, snapping a few quick pictures. “I’m going to save it forever and everytime you’re mean to me, I’ll remember this and be ok.”

“See, this is why I rarely do anything nice for you.”


End file.
